1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns an installation for the coating of individual wafer sheets or the like, transported adjacently to each other on a conveyor installation. Baked products, such as wafer sheets, are coated with a spreading mass, in particular with a mass that is viscous or highly viscous at the temperature of application only, such as, for example, caramel or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the food and confectionary industry, coated wafer sheets are stacked in so-called block formers into filled water blocks and further processed into different wafer products.
Machine-made wafer or waffle products, marketed filled or without fillings, are generally known as confections in the food and confectionary industry. These products of the wafer industry are, for example, wafer cones, wafer cups, wafer plates, flat wafer disks, low hollow wafers, hollow bars, wafer rolls, ice cream cones, filled wafers, small filled wafer bars, wafer sections, ice cream wafers and the like. These wafer products are baked products made of wafer batter or dough of a crispy, brittle and fragile consistency.
The different wafer products may be produced in different ways. Thus, certain wafer products are baked in their final form, such as, for example, wafer cones, wafer cups, wafer disks, how hollow wafers, or the like.
In the production of the other wafer products, a wafer sheet or an endless wafer strip is first baked and given its final shape while still in its soft, baking state, after which the wafer product is cooled to assume its crisp, brittle consistency. Examples are sugar ice cream cones, hollow bars, sugar wafer rolls and the like. For the production of further types of wafer products, several wafer sheets are baked, cooled coated with a spreading mass, such as, for example, a cream, and stacked to form a block of wafers. The filled wafer blocks are subsequently cut into small, handy pieces of uniform size, which are then packed into units consisting of one or several pieces, possibly in airtight packages, and marketed in that form.
Depending on the product, the wafer products may be provided with various coatings of, for example, sugar of chocolate, or may be given different fillings such as, for example, ice cream, chocolate or the like.
The aforedescribed wafer or waffle products differ from the waffles baked in the home in a conventional manner in waffle irons. The latter are a soft, roll or pancake-like baked product. These waffles produced in the home have a similarity with respect to their consistency and applicability to the aforedescribed wafer products of the wafer industry.
Devices for the application of a layer of cream to wafer sheets by a film coating process are known. In the film coating process, wafer sheets which abut against each other with their front edges and which are arranged on a conveyor belt, are coated with a cream. In this regard, a film of cream is taken continuously with a blade from a coating roll and deposited under it onto the wafer sheets transported by the conveyor belt. A belt, following the conveyor belt in sequence and running more rapidly, separates the coated wafer sheets which abut against each other with their front edges, so that a sufficiently large distance is created between the sheets to allow their subsequent stacking. This running belt guides the spaced-apart, individual wafer sheets to a stacking device. In the known devices for the application of a layer of cream, a coating roll and a scraper roll are arranged underneath a storage funnel for the cream. The scraper roll determines the thickness of the layer of cream on the coating roll. The cream storage funnel is arranged at the apex of the coating roll and the scraper roll follows the latter in the direction of rotation. The blade taking the film of cream from the coating roll is located in the area of the bottom crest line of the coating roll. The conveyor belt for the wafer sheets, which sheets are transported adjacently to each other, is located below the coating roll and is followed by a belt running rapidly in the direction of transport and guiding the wafer sheets, now separated from each other, into a stacking device.
The disadvantage of these known devices resides primarily in the fact that spreading masses which are highly viscous in their processing state and which solidify rapidly during cooling, cannot be processed. This is because the spreading mass solidifies so rapidly during application that separation of the wafer sheets, which abut against each other with their front edges and which are connected with each other by the layer of the spreading mass, no longer becomes possible simply by the use of different belt velocities of two successive transport belts. If the processing temperature is increased to make possible the separation of successive, coated wafer sheets by two conveyor belts following each other and revolving at different velocities, the spreading mass will be drawn apart into threads when successive wafer sheets are pulled apart as a result of the consistency of the mass. This soils both the front edge of each wafer sheet and also the conveyor belt between two successive wafer sheets. Furthermore, if two successive wafer sheets again come into contact with each other, they adhere to each other. For the aforedescribed reasons, the known devices for the application of creams by the film coating process are not suitable for the processing of spreading masses which are viscous to highly viscous at the temperature of application and which are adhesive, such as, for example, caramel or Products similar to Turkish delight.